Hamilton County public schools will be places where all students feel included, regardless of race, income, religion, nationality, sexual origin or sexual identity, if STARS organizers have their way.
They will be places of acceptance, where even the student who sits alone in the cafeteria gets asked about his day and students feel so strongly about bullying that they don’t just think it’s wrong, they speak up to stop it.
Inclusion was the message at the Hamilton County Department of Education’s Students Taking a Right Stand Youth Summit on Tuesday. More than 100 students from six high schools attended the event on Tuesday. By the time the summit is complete at the end of September, about 18 students from nearly every area high and middle school will have participated.
“When you walk by and see bullying happening, I’m sorry to inform you of this, but when you witness it, you are now a part of it,” said William Cardell, Hamilton County Schools student assistant coordinator. “If you walk by with the attitude of ‘I’m not getting involved,’ what you have said by your silence is bullying at my school is fine, as long as it doesn’t involve me.”
Cardell was one of several adults teaching students to stand up to bullying and to positively impact the culture at their schools. He said most students have more in common than they realize, even students from different backgrounds.